"She would have done better by Australian families by detailing more quickly the sort of plans she has in mind for 'savings' - which is code, based on what she said in her speech, [for] tax increases for Australian families," he said.

"[Families] can't plan with confidence for the future because they're not quite sure what 'savings' measures will affect them."

The election manoeuvre is designed to put more pressure on the Opposition to release its costed policies.

Senator Sinodinos says they are coming.

"Well, I think there are two stages to this. There will be a sequence of policy releases over the next few months," he said.

"That's been the consistent strategy of the Opposition with full costings available before the election which will take into account whatever the latest official numbers which the Government can provide."

The opinion polls are showing that Mr Abbott as a leader is unpopular. But Senator Sinodinos says there will be no leadership change in the Coalition ahead of the vote.

"The polls that I see, the publicly available polls all suggest that the Coalition has a relatively strong and sustained lead and the reason for that is Tony Abbott's leadership," he said.

"He may have lost some skin on the way through but that's because he's driven the argument so hard against the Government."

Ms Gillard maintains she is not trying to engineer Australia's longest election campaign.

"Quite the opposite. It should be clear to all which are the days of governing and which are the days of campaigning," she said.

World partners:

This service includes material from AAP, Agence France-Presse, APTN, BBC, CNN, Getty, Pacnews, Reuters and other agencies which is copyright and cannot be reproduced, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without written consent.